Odje Urges Institutional Reform To Deepen Democracy

A Legal practitioner and humam rights activist, Dr Akpo Odje, wants increased institutional reforms in the country to deepen democracy.

He made the call in Yenagoa on Friday in a lecture entitled “Freedom of Information: The Right to Know”.

Odje said at the event to mark the World Press Freedom Day that the sack of Prof. Maurice Iwu as INEC Chairman would not bring an end to electoral fraud in the country.

Rather, he said, the nation should concentrate on reforming the entire political system in line with international practice.

The Warri-based lawyer said the reforms would engineer better progress for the country.

Odje said that no one could do any magic in terms of performance until the complete overhaul of the institutions.

“Even if you appoint tested hands, including Prof. Wole Soyinka to become INEC Chairman, there is only little he can do.

“The system is corrupt. Until the institutions are reformed, we may not be able to conduct free and fair elections,’’ he stated.

Odje expressed worry that barely 13 months to the next general election, there is no sign of preparations due largely to political crisis in the country.

“This is the month of May, and elections are been scheduled for January next year. As we talk now, no voter registration has been conducted.

‘’We don’t even know when political parties will conduct their primaries. How then can we have credible elections,” he queried.

The lawyer also faulted the manner in which the federal government was handling the post amnesty programme for ex-militants in the Niger Delta.

“We called the boys to come out of the creeks and granted them amnesty, even for not committing any crime. But the way it is going, it looks like we never prepared for the post Amnesty era,” Odje said.

He also picked on the oil companies, saying that they were “not helping matters”.

He said the companies’ failure to relocate their headquarters to their operational areas in the Niger Delta was a set back to the development of the region.

“They are impoverishing our people by paying their taxes in Abuja and Lagos,” Odje said.

He called on journalists to live above board in the discharge of their professional duties and expressed concerns over the delay in the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill by the National Assembly.

He also advised journalists to be security conscious as they remained targets of politicians who might not like them to report the truth.

“The Nigerian Constitution is not protective of journalists just like in Ghana and other developed countries. Your job is a very delicate one and you need to be careful,” Odje warned.

In an address, the Chairman of the occasion and Commissioner of Bayelsa State Ministry of Information, Strategy and Orientation, Mr Nathan Egba, described journalism as a noble profession.

He called on media practitioners in the state to see themselves as partners in the development of Bayelsa.

In his welcome address, the State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Tarinyo Akono, said the body was disturbed by the recent killing of journalists across the country.

Akono used the occasion to announce the re-naming of the state NUJ Press Centre after veteran journalist, Late Ernest Ikoli, for his contribution to the growth of journalism in Nigeria.